


Full Disclosure

by CaffieneKitty



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films)
Genre: Community: watsons_woes, Gen, John Watson Whump, M/M, Mostly Gen, baker street irregulars - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-02
Updated: 2016-07-02
Packaged: 2018-07-19 15:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7366645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaffieneKitty/pseuds/CaffieneKitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A message brought by an Irregular provides Holmes more information than Watson intended.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Full Disclosure

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [watsons_woes](http://watsons-woes.livejournal.com/) July Writing Prompt #1: [’Tis But a Scratch](http://watsons-woes.livejournal.com/1495226.html). Contains horrific depiction of "Victorian Urchin" dialect that is in no way historically accurate. May be edited retroactively later.

"With luck, Watson will have tracked our suspected accomplice to his master's hideout within the hour, and shall return well before midnight. Excellent." Holmes dropped a farthing in the fidgeting boy's cap (at least he assumed the scruffy child was male. Holmes tended to assume all of his Irregulars were boys unless presented with deliberate signals to the contrary. Times being what they were for young people running the streets, they nearly all wished to be presumed to be boys regardless. To support their facade, he deliberately chose not to observe his short informants too closely.)

Messaging service paid for and quarry nearly run to ground by his erstwhile companion, Holmes turned his mind back to the experiment upstairs that would provide the tediously necessary proof for Lestrade and his bunglers to make an arrest.

"'E told me not to tell you anyfink more than that, Mister Holmes!"

Holmes stopped. The lad's voice had pitched higher on his outcry, his pace tense, urgent. Holmes turned, staring down at the boy standing in the entryway, crushing his stained cap in his small hands. Eyes wide, nervously swallowing.

"If there's more to be said, why would he not want you to tell me? You must tell me everything that's relevant to the case."

The boy's mouth opened, then snapped shut with a small noise of distress. "It's... 'e said it's not rel'vant Mister Holmes. I said you should know, but the doctor, 'e, 'e gave me a sixpence not to say nuffink to you 'bout it, sir."

"And I suppose you'll want double to break your word?" Holmes growled, crouching to meet the lad face to face. But the boy's brown eyes held only fear and worry, not greed.

"No." The boy sighed and held out his grubby left hand to show the shining sixpence in his palm. "But I 'ave to give it back, 'cause I've got to grass on 'im, sir. For 'is own sake."

Holmes didn't move to take the small silver coin. "Speak."

The boy swallowed. "'E were in a fight."

Holmes scoffed. "Watson can hold his own."

"That 'e can, sir!" the boy agreed eagerly. "'E left those men what were set to kill him in the alley, knocked cold as kippers!"

"As I said."

"They 'ad knives though, and the doctor, 'e said it weren't bad, but I saw the the blood, sir."

A sour chill flushed through Holmes' heart. "They stabbed Watson," he distantly heard himself say, as though discussing a disappointing turn in the weather.

"Wasn't bleeding overmuchly sir, what I could see under his coat before 'e pulled it closed. It were more 'is arm. I seen it, it was 'angin' wrong." The boy hunched his shoulder and let his right arm dangle as demonstration.

"Dislocated shoulder," Holmes whispered and the boy nodded, resuming his normal posture.

"'E couldn't pick nuffink up wiv 'is hand, sir. I 'ad to pass 'im 'is gun. Couldn't take it with that hand, 'e had to take it with 'is left. Dropped 'is cane tryin' to take it." The boy swallowed and met Holmes's eyes. "If they find 'im again, or if they see him followin' your pigeon..."

As the boy trailed off, Holmes' active mind filled in the rest. Watson's normally swift firing and steady aim thrown awry by using his off hand. Disarmed, the injury hindering his defence, a gang of brutes gaining the upper hand, thrashing Watson until they deemed him 'taught a lesson' and no longer a threat. Leaving Watson in some filthy alley, beaten, bleeding, broken-

Holmes stood, grabbing his coat and hat from the hook by the door. "Where," he snapped to the boy.

The boy's forehead wrinkled in concentration. "I talked to 'im in Butcher's Square, the fight were in Bone Alley, then 'e went down-"

"Never mind." Holmes shrugged into his coat and hat. "We will take a cab. You will direct me to where you saw Watson heading last, and you will hand that coin back to him yourself."

The boy stood straighter, gravely closing his fist 'round the coin. "Yes, Mister Holmes."

"And if- _when_ we find Watson," _so I can have a discussion with him regarding what is and is not to be considered relevant to the case, his status of injury and increased likelihood of being beaten and left for dead in an alley being most definitely_ always _to be deemed relevant_ , "I shall replace that coin with ten of its brothers, as recompense for your honourable candour."

The boy's grin held far more relief than avarice. "Thank you, Mister Holmes."

With that, Holmes ushered the boy out the door and hailed a cab.

-.-.-  
(that's all)


End file.
